World’s First IOTA Charging Station Launched in the Netherlands

On April 18, 2018, ElaadNL, an innovative smart charging infrastructure company, has launched the first charging station that accepts payment IOTA. The charger is located at the ElaadNL test site in Arnhems Buiten Energy Business Park.

The ElaadNL test site contains all types of charging stations which are such as charging island, a fast charger, two charging lanterns, a battery and IOTA charger.

One Step Ahead to Smarter World

Alisa Maas, Head of Mobility at the IOTA Foundation said:

“IOTA is thrilled to see ElaadNL take their IOTA smart charging station development to the next level. This solution demystifies IOTA’s potential to become the backbone of the Machine Economy. Thanks to ElaadNL’s cutting-edge innovation, seamless e-mobility is taking one big leap forward, and we look forward to sharing this achievement with the rest of our growing ecosystem, at the crossroads of mobility, energy, and smart cities sectors.”

The charging station works independently, and unsupervised, where paying and charging is both done employing IOTA’s “blockless” distributed ledger technology, Tangle, on a Machine-to-machine (M2M) basis.

The charging station is outfitted with hardware operation that is capable of setting up TCP/IP connection with the car. Once the connection is established, it will permit the exchange of relevant data and payment via IOTA in a machine-to-machine mode. Using the IOTA wallet, users can charge their car by sending IOTA tokens if the vehicle does not have the required software or hardware.

Onoph Caron, Managing Director of ElaadNL, stated, “This charger shows the ability to use the real machine to machine communications and micropayments, with the use of IOTA as a secure layer for these payments and data. ElaadNL researches all kinds of innovative and smart technologies with regard to charging electric cars. DLT-technology might become a popular thing shortly. Now we can explore and research its possibilities on our testing ground in Arnhem.”

A Perfect Fit for the Future

IOTA tangle is actually a novel Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) which is mainly designed for the Internet of Things (IoT). It is an open source procedure to make easy novel M2M interactions comprising fee-less real-time micropayments and secure data transfer.

The charging station does not require an additional communication protocol to smoothly run operations as transactions are exchanged straightaway without the utilization of a charge card. IOTA charging station functions entirely autonomously. To guarantee reliable and irrefutable administration meter values are stored in Tangle blockless distributed ledger technology every 15 minutes.

Earlier in 2018, IOTA signed a partnership with Taipei city to help the government achieve its smart city goals. Tangle technology will be integrated with multiple smart city programs such as smart ID cards and weather monitoring system around the city.

This new technology seems to be perfect for digitally connected future and the fully digitalized world and could also offer insight for other sectors such as energy sector.